Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

When it comes to bad habits and addiction, the most important lesson I’ve learned is; to recover from a bad habit or addiction for the long term, you must replace them with healthy habits over the short term. There are two reasons for this:

1. If you don’t stay busy and active while withdrawing from an addiction, the inactivity will kill you. You’ll obsess about what you’re missing. The feeling of lack will lead you to overeating, moping, watching tv, and feeling miserable. Willpower isn’t a long-term solution. At some point you’ll cave in and all your efforts will have been for nothing.
2. Abstinence isn’t good enough. Adopting healthy replacements will speed your recovery process and give you the energy to keep you going in the right direction. If you feed you mind and body good things, the whole process becomes a lot easier.

Discover Your Weakness, Then Switch Them

Here’s a simple system that makes the process of recovery a lot easier.

Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the center, from top to bottom.
List any or all of the bad habits or addictions you wish to be permanently rid of. Put those things on the left hand side.

Every bad habit or addiction has a healthy alter-ego. Write the good replacement on the right side of the paper. When you decide to quit the bad habit, immediately replace it with the good habit.

Not all replacements are opposites. Withdrawal from stimulants produce a depressive effect and withdrawal from depressants make you over sensitive and hyper.

Some examples (bad habit first, good habit second)

• smoking / deep breathing
• alcohol / water or juice
• overweight / lots of cardio exercise
• depressants (legal or illegal) / meditation or yoga
• stimulants (legal or illegal) / high energy sport or exercise
• coffee / herbal tea
• sugar / fruit
• gambling / charity work
• shop-a-holic / volunteer at a homeless shelter

Exercise, healthy food, water, and meditation or prayer is suggested no matter what your situation. They provide inner and outer strength as well as balance.

A common withdrawal response from cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or coffee, is constipation. It’s not bad enough that you get fevers, night sweats, paranoia, depression, and moodiness - your digestive tract also has to go on strike. It’s really important to eat lots of vegetables and take fiber with water leading up to the big day. That way, you won’t have to suffer additional discomfort.

If you’re saying to yourself: “You’re just replacing one habit with another habit. You’re still addicted to something!” You’re right, but I’d rather be addicted to things that bring me health and happiness than to those that bring disease and misery. Like the old Bob Dylan song goes, “You got to serve somebody.”